The Hobbit is coming and with it, comes along a whole bunch of Dwarves! Some look friendly, some look chubby, some look stern, but one thing they have in common is: THE LANGUAGE! Yes, boys and girls, for the first time, let’s not talk about an elvish language, but the dwarvish one, Khuzdûl!

Khuzdûl is the secret tongue of the Dwarves which they speak only among themselves and never teach anybody else. (I say….booooringggg). Tolkien developed very few material about it and there are around 50 attested words of Khuzdul, too limited to even try to speak it, unfortunately!

Some news on the net talk about David Salo helping out with Khuzdûl so we may listen that exotic language on the big screen. But HOW? How can that be when there’s no material to use?

Khuzdûl is based mostly on semitic languages like Hebrew, and Salo as a good linguist he is, follows this path, taking care of inventing structures and/or words that feel like real Khuzdûl as it should be.

Balin Fundinul Uzbadkhazaddûmu

But he’s not the first one to do that! If you are eager to speak like a Dwarf, there is some material available, made by fans, with a pretty consistent Khuzdûl grammar and extended vocabulary. Just like Black Speech here, perhaps it’s quite possible to release the Dwarf that’s inside of you!

Behold :

Quasi-Khuzdul!

Click!

This site is neat! Visually is pretty simple, but the info there is organized, consistent, well thought and analyzed. I wish I could get in contact with the creator(s), but they leave no contact info nor any names there. It’s almost like an anonymous site!

There you can study everything your inner Dwarf hungers! Consonants, vowels, phonetics, verbs, grammar,….BUT never forget: That’s not Tolkien’s. It’s a derivative work based upon Tolkien’s. Even though, I compliment the site because it’s very well based and executed!

As an appetizer, check this chart involving consonants and their analysis:

11 responses to “Khuzdûl….or “Quasi-Khuzdûl””

quenya101, when you’re at your dashboard, you will see it at the far upper left corner, on a dark bar that goes all the way across the top, a circled W, your avatar, the name of your blog, and your site views for the last 48 hours. Hover over the circled W, and you will see a menu “New Post, Reader, Notifications…”
Hope you find this, have a great day!
Maria